Daily news and other information from the city made famous around the globe by the "Maidan Revolution".

Sunday, June 03, 2012

Euro 2012 Host Ukraine Tries Stray Dogs Sterilisation Scheme

KIEV, Ukraine -- In a clinic in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, two vets lean over a sleeping puppy and deftly remove its ovaries and uterus.

A dog looks out of an enclosure at the Sirius shelter where some 1600 stray dogs and cats are housed, some 80 kms from Kiev in April 2012. After a storm sparked by the Euro 2012 co-host's alleged cull of the stray dogs that plague the country's streets, animal rights campaigners have stepped in to try to control the errant canines by sterilising them.

After a storm sparked by the Euro 2012 co-host's alleged cull of the stray dogs that plague the country's streets, animal rights campaigners have stepped in to try to control the errant canines by sterilising them.

At the helm is Austrian organisation Vier Pfoten (Four Paws), which is launching a programme notably in the four cities hosting matches in Euro 2012: Kiev, plus Lviv in the west and Donetsk and Kharkiv in the east.

Mindful of the expected influx of hundreds of thousands of fans, plus a global television audience of millions, ex-Soviet Ukraine has been working to spruce up its cities and burnish its image.

Tackling the growing numbers of strays that roam their streets has been part of those moves, also driven by serious concerns about feral dog attacks -- which reportedly hit 2,800 in Kiev alone in 2010.

Last year, according to critics, Ukrainian authorities decided to take radical steps to wipe out as many of the animals as possible before the tournament, which kicks off on June 8 in co-host Poland and ends in Kiev on July 1.

Animal rights campaigners around the world condemned what they said was the extermination of thousands of dogs, claiming some were poisoned or burned alive.

In the face of the protests, the authorities ordered a halt to the killings at the end of 2011.

Vier Pfoten decided to come up with an alternative and in February signed a deal with Ukraine.

"The idea here is to use the atmosphere, the world's focus and the European championship to develop something very, very long term," said Four Paws representative Nicolas Entrup.

"Once the final is played, the football atmosphere will be gone, but we will stay in Ukraine and work with Ukrainians to help animals," he added.

Working out of mobile clinics, some 520 people are being mustered for the programme, including 60 vets from Ukraine and beyond.

"Our ambition is here to provide a positive solution, a positive programme where people work together with animal welfare, activists as well as veterinary experts," said Entrup.

"It's a positive programme to stop the killing of stray dogs, to decline their population, so the relation between people and animals can flourish and be positive," he underlined.

The programme was launched in Kiev several weeks ago and is ongoing in a dusty city district where old houses stand alongside Soviet-era tower blocks.

Guided by local residents, a handful of Vier Pfoten experts, including a vet and a dog catcher, come across a pack of six dogs.

Vet Cornel Stoenescu, from Romania, fires a tranquiliser dart and hits a black dog in the haunch.

The animal begins to limp and then lies down, before the team cages it and drive to a veterinary school.

An elderly woman asks what's going on.

"We're going to sterilise it, vaccinate it and bring it back here," explains a young volunteer named Daria.

"That's good, because there are people who poison them," the woman says.

"That's happen several times here. It's horrible, they suffer so much."

Natasha, a 13-year-old who knows and loves all the district's strays, waylays the team, concerned about a pregnant bitch.

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We arrived in Kiev (Kyiv) on December 28, 1990 from Morristown, New Jersey, USA. This was back in the days of Perestroika and before Ukraine gained its independence from Moscow, in 1991. We lived in both Kiev and Odessa, Ukraine. After 20 years in the "Workers' Paradise" we returned to the United States of America. Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, is one of the more charming cities in Europe. This 1500-year old city, with a population of nearly 3 million people, is a leading industrial and commercial center of the country. This blog is a public service, for anyone interested in the political, business and social climates of Ukraine. Information is gathered from numerous international and local news sources, and updated 24/7. You are encouraged to leave comments on this blog, but you must have a free Google mail account.